3 Steps to Simplicity Success
Albert Einstein said “if you can’t explain it to a 6-year old then you don’t understand it yourself”. Why, in this crazy world of ours, do we make things ever more complicated? Do you ever find yourself yearning for the simple things in life?
Complexity is easy – simplicity is hard
It’s easy to make your life more complicated. All you have to do is keep adding on to what exists and eventually you will end up with something complex. Simple! But to make your life simple is much harder. Why? Because you have to understand something very well in order to make it simple. And that takes effort.
There are three things involved in being successful at simplicity.
- Awareness
- Skills
- Effort
Awareness
Its easy to let your life become increasing complicated – if you sit back and relax long enough complexity will happen all by itself. All too often business processes and systems have evolved into ever increasing levels of complexity because no-one became aware that it was getting harder and harder. Today, however, there is a huge awareness for the need to simplify businesses. Companies around the world are screaming for support for simplicity.
Effort
Simplicity is unlikely to happen without a deliberate intervention. Systems and processes do not simplify themselves – they require you to intervene and apply your mind to finding a simpler or more effective way. It means that you have to rethink the past, undo conventional wisdom and challenging your assumptions about how things are supposed to be, should be and, potentially, could be.
Skills
When the lights have gone on and you have become aware of the need, and you are ready to put in the effort, then what? Did you know that there are practical ways of developing the skills of simplicity? Edward de Bono’s course on Simplicity provides leaders and manages with a practical toolbox where you will learn how to evaluate, provoke, negate, challenge and rearrange parts with the goal of always making things simpler.
Nicola Tyler | Thinker
